June 2018

Latino Arts Workers Take Voices to Capitol Hill

The NALAC Advocacy Leadership Institute (ALI) was born in 2009 as a response to the lack of representation when it came to people of color shaping arts policy. Since then 86 artists, arts administrators and culture bearers have graduated from the program and continue to lead proactive efforts in their communities. This past April, 13 Fellows participated in the ALI, spending three days on the ground in Washington, D.C. following a two-month virtual curriculum.

With their elevator pitches and strategies in mind, Fellows set off for meeting with lawmakers and staffers on the Hill. Because of the work of our Fellows and arts advocates like them across the country, the U.S. House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee has proposed funding the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities at $155 million for fiscal year 2019, a $2 million increase.

THE LATEST

Latinx Dance

Last month in Phoenix, Tucson-based choreographer and dancer Yvonne Montoya (NLI '13) and Gabriela Muñoz (NLI '09, ILI '18) organized Dance in the Desert to convene Latinx dancemakers. Dance in the Desert arrived at a critical point for Latinx dancemakers: a moment of aesthetic innovation grounded in the experiences of Latinx communities. Montoya envisioned the gathering as a pilot for future Latinx dance initiatives and engaged various partners: Safos DanceTheatre, AZ ArtWorker (Arizona Commission on the Arts), Liz Lerman LLC, and Projecting All Voices (ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts).

With support from NALAC alum Fabiola Torralba (NLI '12), Latinx choreographers gathered in San Antonio at the El Mundo Zurdo Conferenceon May 17-19, 2018 via the Decolonial Epistemologies Dance Lab to network, share resources, and build support and advocacy for Latino/as/x in the professional field of dance.

Field News

Felicidades to Self-Help Graphics & Art! The arts space founded in 1979 has purchased its own building, securing a permanent home in Boyle Heights.

Poet Martín Espada is the first Latino to win the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Awarded by The Poetry Foundation, the $100,000 prize honors a living US poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition.

Calendar

Our team has been on the road advocating for Latinx arts and cultures! In May, President & CEO María López De León was part of the U.S. Delegation at the first Americas Cultural Summit in Ottawa, Canada that brought together leaders in public funding of arts and culture from across the Americas to discuss their role and impact on the rise of cultural citizenship.

This spring, Adriana Gallego, NALAC Chief Operating Officer, moderated culminating sessions for two distinct capacity building initiatives investing in immigrant and Latinx communities: Dance in the Desert, “Community Share Out” in Phoenix and “Navigating Cultural Identities” for NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program in San Antonio.

Our Director of Programs Gabriel Magraner was at the APASO Conference in Austin talking about equity in grantmaking with colleagues from NPN/VAN and Alternate ROOTS. Here's what's on our calendar as summer approaches.

Alumni News

Connecticut's INTAKE Organization led by Angie Durrell (NLI '13, ALI '14, ILI '18) has a new name: "INTEMPO encompasses the momentum and rhythm that we are gaining and the overarching goal of everyone playing together in unity!"

WHAT WE'RE READING

Chicago-based artist Yvette Mayorga talks about her striking work (utilizing bright colors, cake frosting, and signifiers of the American dream) and shares her story: "Wanting to be an artist at a young age seemed super impossible. Thinking about living in a capitalist society and having to make money, and how do you make that work?"

TheNew York Times is writing obituaries of women who went unrecognized in their pages. Maira Garcia writes about a literary great: "When the poet Julia de Burgos left Puerto Rico at 25, she vowed never to return. It was a promise she would keep."

Taína Caragol, curator of Latino art and history at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery is quoted in an article about deaccessions (officially removing an item from a collection) in museums to support the purchases of works by women and people of color: "As curators and museum professionals, we have to keep questioning the canon, and with this let it evolve and welcome new voices."

OPPORTUNITY HIGHLIGHTS

Take a look at some recent opportunities in the arts, and arts administration fields. For a full listing of opportunities, click the button below.

In addition to our wonderful volunteers and donors, NALAC's work is supported by the Surdna Foundation, Andrew Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Texas Commission on the Arts, San Antonio Area Foundation and the City of San Antonio Department of Arts and Culture.

Southwest® is the official airline of the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures.

The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) is the nation's premier nonprofit organization exclusively dedicated to the promotion, advancement, development, and cultivation of the Latino arts field. In this capacity, NALAC stimulates and facilitates intergenerational dialogues among disciplines, languages, and traditional and contemporary expressions.